Marine biologists on Wednesday performed an autopsy on a short-finned pilot whale that had died on Tuesday and found the cetacean’s stomach filled with plastic bags.
The whale was found stranded in Taichung’s Wuci District (梧棲) on Friday last week and was sheltered by National Cheng Kung University’s Marine Biology and Cetacean Research Center.
The creature died even though marine biologists transferred it to a pool and tried to save its life for five days.
Scientists at the institute said that they were shocked when they found large quantities of plastic bags and cellophane snack-wrappers in the whale’s stomach, adding that some of the bags were even neatly folded when retrieved.
“It was as if it had swallowed a bagful of household waste. It is really saddening,” one scientist said.
Hopefully, this incident raises people’s awareness of oceanic pollution and inspires them to cultivate a sustainable environment and show more respect to life, the institute said.
Research center director Wang Chien-ping (王建平) said the whale was a calf — weighing just over 100kg — and had only just stopped feeding on its mother’s milk.
Perhaps due to an inability to differentiate between food and trash, it ate whatever it found floating in the ocean, which left its stomach bulging with garbage, he said.
“It shows that the marine environment in the nation’s neighboring waters is appalling, and cetaceans are short of food,” Wang said.
Taiwan’s Liu Ming-i, right, who also goes by the name Ray Liu, poses with a Chinese Taipei flag after winning the gold medal in the men’s physique 170cm competition at the International Fitness and Bodybuilding Federation Asian Championship in Ajman, United Arab Emirates, yesterday.
Costa Rica sent a group of intelligence officials to Taiwan for a short-term training program, the first time the Central American country has done so since the countries ended official diplomatic relations in 2007, a Costa Rican media outlet reported last week. Five officials from the Costa Rican Directorate of Intelligence and Security last month spent 23 days in Taipei undergoing a series of training sessions focused on national security, La Nacion reported on Friday, quoting unnamed sources. The Costa Rican government has not confirmed the report. The Chinese embassy in Costa Rica protested the news, saying in a statement issued the same
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
RSS